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Pink & white school girls caked in make up.
You can't really see from this photo but these young girls had the war paint absolutely plastered on their wee faces. We saw them about 5 times tramping up and down in this group along the Nanjing Lu. Hi again. What? An update so quickly after the last one? I know - it must be such a joy for you all - but really we are just taking advantage of the free internet access in our hotel room.
Today it stopped raining and the sun came out ..... HURRAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We meant to tell you in the post train journey update bit of our blog yesterday, but when we got off at Shanghai station, and went to get a taxi, there was a little boy who was pointing and laughing at Shaz for reasons only known to himself. His mum was pulling him away chastising him, but then we all locked eyes and started laughing along with the wee lad. We thought it was dead funny at the time but now we've noticed quite a lot of people staring as we walk along the road. Her new hairstyle surely isn't that bad? Maybe it's just that there are not that many Westerners here in Shanghai, relatively speaking.
So...... today was fab. FAB. Fabtastico. Fabamundo! Fabbadabbadooo!
First off, we got up and had the obligatory walk along the Bund, which is the part of Shanghai which sits
Busy busy!
The pedestrain areas in the city centre have nearly as many bicycles on them as peeps. on the riverside across from the new Pudong area. According to Lonely Planet, it's the first place that you should head for - good advice as it's nice to get the experience over and done with. This stretch of road harps back to the good old years when Shanghai was overrun with Europeans, influencing business methods and building styles all over the place. The Bund has lots of famous top end brand stores either opened or just about to open such as Chanel and D&G, and if there is one bank situated here, then there are a hundred of them! The buildings are pretty much 1930s or earlier in style - all big blocks of stone in shades of dark grey, brown and beige, with plenty opaque glass lanterns and Art Deco influenced carvings on the facias. To see the river & look over to the Pudong area you have to go under a subway tunnel as it isn't possible to cross the road. Once over, the view is really quite interesting as in complete contrast to the Bund, everything on the the other side of the river is Super Sci-fi. There is the TV broadcasting Oriental Pearl building, with
it's series of pink glittering globes along the 400-odd foot tower which rises up dramatically into the skyline. Then there are plenty unusual shaped Business towers with glass frontage sparkling away with the reflections of tugs and sightseeing boats on the water below.
We hung around here for a wee while, but got a bit fed up with constantly being asked to buy postcards or whatever else, and decided to head for a coffee. No mean feat. It's not easy to find a Coffee House as such in this part of the city, however LP came up trumps for us again by way of an introduction to a coffee house that we would otherwise NEVER have found. Its called Cafe Bonomie and is located on the Bund in the Pudong Development Bank building, on the second floor of what looks like a posh yet eerie hotel..... This little cafe is such a find, and has a superb array of coffees, snacks and light meals, but the best thing of all is the selection of drinks called ''Healthiness Drinkers''. These are basically non alchoholic cocktails, but it's the names that are amazing. They have; 'Coconut Trees Romantic Feeling', 'The Ice
Lantern street decorations
Sponsored by China Mobile. These were all being taken down tonight when we were out for a walk after dinner. Be aware that we love Chinese lanterns, so there will probably be a few more shots like this one posted on our blogs over the next couple of weeks! Cream Song Is Strange', 'The Strawberry Amazes' and 'The Beauty Already Knows'. We have taken note of the ingredients in these drinks so if any of you are interested to know whats in them then just let us know.
This afternoon we went for a stroll down the Nanjing Lu which is a long street that starts on the Bund and stretches 5.5kms through Renmin Square all the way out to Zhongshan Park. This street looks best at night when it glitters away like Blackpool Illuminations with massive Coke adverts mingling with food signs, giant neon pandas, jewellery stores and shopping malls. It's a truly fabulous night walk as well as a shoppers paradise. Note that the touts are also out in force here trying to sell you fake Watches and Handbags, although they are not quite as persistent as in Hong Kong.
We had dinner tonight just off Nanjing Lu in this brilliant local restaurant. We had big prawns fried with piles & piles of chilli & garlic (V spicy), some soy fish, braised garlic pak choi and some dumplings. We ordered too much as usual, and couldn't eat it all. The waiting staff in restaurants do
Pudong area taken from the Bund, with the Huangpu River in the foreground.
This is THE photo that everyone takes in Shanghai. The tall pointy building with the pink globular bits is the Pearl Oriental TV building. a weird thing here. They seat you, then hand you a menu and wait by the side of your table, foot a tapping, till you tell them what you want. This puts the pressure on you to decide very quickly, so what we are going to do from now on is ask for a menu at the door, then decide what we fancy, THEN ask for a table. Hopefully that will prevent us from making snap decisions, although so far we have not had a bad meal.
Tomorrow we are going to visit Shanghai Old Town where we hope to see some traditional houses and gardens, and sip lovely fragrant teas in tranquil suroundings! And the weather report says 'sunshine' again, so fingers crossed....
Night night then, hope you all have a great weekend!
Al & Shaz. xx
ps: Ten points if anyone can name the two stars of the film 'Shanghai Surprise' WITHOUT looking it up on Google.
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Amanda
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Ask me something I don't know.
Madonna and her then husband Sean Penn - it was the first thing that sprung to mind when I read the title of this blog. I could make some bad jokes about you two being the Penns, but since yous are being laughed at enough, I won't bother. Keep up the good blogs.